Tips for tying with deer hair

Here are some great tips on tying with deer hair from my late friend Chris Helm.

Birthday present

My birthday present arrived today from South Africa.
It's my Humpy painted by the talented artist Gavin Erwin.
Love it! 😀

My other Humpy paintings by:

Ryan Keane

Cindy Day

Marcel Terblanche

Books from South Africa

The African continent has, due to the British heritage, a surprising long tradition of fly fishing. Like Kenya that started with introducing brown trout in the local waters from Loch Leven in 1909. The Kenya's Fly Fishers Club goes back to 1919! CNN made a great documentary about the fly fishing history in Kenya.

My first introductory of South Africa as a fly fishing destination was by book  'The South African Fly Fishing Handbook' which I bought in the early 2000. Reading this book I encountered the typical fly fishing & tying culture of SA. Truth to be told, the reason I bought the book while browsing in a book store in the first place were the nice pictures where the fishermen caught their fish using the Orvis Superfine rods in gin clear small streams. Back in the 1980's as a school kid I marvelled at the Orvis rods in the various catalogs 😀

Recently Peter Brigg and Ed Herbst wrote a new book about the typical fly patterns that originated from South Africa. This book gives a very nice overview of the development of patterns that started with old English patterns from the early 1900's. The first shipment of the book got lost but the second shipment arrived after a long journey. I love the Humpy drawing by Peter! Thanks guys!